In 1600 Shakspere brought action against John Clayton for seven pounds and got judgment in his favor. He sued Philip Rogers, a neighbor in Stratford Court, for one pound, fifteen shillings and six pence due for malt sold, and two shillings loaned. In August, 1608, Shakspere prosecuted John Addenbroke to recover a debt of six pounds. He prosecuted this last suit for a couple of years until he got the defendant into prison. The prisoner was bailed out by Horneby. Addenbroke, running away, escaped from the clutches of his tormentor, who then bore down on his security, Horneby. “The pursuit of an impoverished man for the sake of imprisoning him, and depriving him both of the power of paying his debts and supporting his family, grate upon our feelings,” says Richard Grant White, “and,” adds this eminent Shakspearean, “we hunger and we receive these husks, we open our mouths for food and we break our teeth against these stones.” We may be sure that there was left in the impoverished home of John Addenbroke little more palatable than husks and stones, when the father fled to escape from the clutches of his insistent creditor, William Shakspere of Stratford. The paltry suits he brought to recover debts do not tend to disclose this Shakspere’s “radiant temperament,” or fit him to receive the adjective, “gentle,” except in contumely for his claim to gentility. It is not known that Shakspere ever gave hospitality to the necessities of the poor of his native shire, for whom, it appears, there beat no pulse of tenderness. A man of scanty sensibilities he must have been. The poor working people of Stratford, we may be sure, shed no tear at this Shakspere’s departure from the world. We do not envy the man, who can regard these harsh pecuniary practices in this Shakspere, as commendable traits of his worldly wisdom, for he was shrewd in money matters, and could have invested his money in London and Stratford so as not to have brought sorrow and distress upon his poor neighbors. These matters are small in themselves, but they suggest a good deal, for they bear witness to sorrow-stricken mothers, hungry children and fathers in loathsome prisons, powerless to provide food, warmth and light for the home. The diary, or note-book, of Philip Henslowe, the theatrical manager and play-broker, shows that Henslowe was himself a very penurious and grasping man, who, taking advantage of starving play-makers’ necessities, became very wealthy. William Shakspere, of Stratford-on-Avon, as a theatrical manager, became rich also, but his note-book has not been preserved, so nothing is known of his business methods in dealing with the poor play-makers; but the literary antiquarians, by ransacking corporations’ records and other public archives, have proven that Shakspere was very much such a man as the old pawnbroker and play-broker, Philip Henslowe, of a rival house.